As our population continues to see a shift towards an ever higher average age, more and more people are living into their later years when their mobility may be impaired and they need assistance to get around. And it's not just the elderly that can find themselves in such a position—sports injuries, accidents, various diseases, and other causes can result in a person needing to utilize a wheelchair or similar conveyance to get around (hereinafter, “wheelchair” is defined to include all such devices that assist mobility-impaired individuals in moving about). Regardless of the reason, it can be difficult for a mobility-impaired person (hereinafter, “patient”, for ease of reference) to transfer themselves out of a wheelchair and into a vehicle or vice-versa. Additionally, getting in and out of a bath, hot tub, or other similar situations can also be difficult for a patient to do by themselves. Therefore, many patients rely on their friends and family to act as caregivers to provide assistance in such situations.
However, it can be extremely difficult for one person to safely transfer a patient in some (or all) of the situations described above. This is especially true when the caregiver is significantly smaller than the patient, is elderly or otherwise infirm himself/herself, etc. In such cases, caregivers and their patients can find themselves either consciously or unconsciously becoming shut-ins or otherwise avoiding the dangerous situations when the caregiver must assist the patient in effecting a transfer.
What is needed is a caregiver's helper lift that can assist a caregiver (or even a patient acting alone) in safely and efficiently moving or transferring a patient into and out of a wheelchair. A caregiver's helper lift can be used in many transfer situations, but one of the areas in which it is most needed is in assisting patients out of their wheelchairs and into an automobile or similar vehicle (as well as transferring them out of the vehicle and back into their wheelchair). Although the prior art has attempted to address this need, the resulting assistance devices have fallen short of providing complete solutions to the problem. One common shortfall is that some devices are not portable and instead must stay in the garage or home-area of the patient. Such devices can help somewhat in transferring a patient into a vehicle, but are no help once the vehicle arrives at its destination. Other devices attempt to be portable, but caregivers can find that trying to break-down, fold-up or otherwise wrangle the device into a vehicle's trunk or backseat can be more difficult than manually transferring the patient without an assistance device. Therefore, what is needed is a caregiver's helper lift that can assist a caregiver in transferring a patient into or out of a wheelchair, is light enough to be easily portable, and is small enough to be stowed in a trunk or backseat so it can be brought along in a vehicle and used as needed.